


Roots

by phoenixjustice



Category: Batman (Comics), Batman - All Media Types
Genre: Computers and angst, M/M, alternate version of Batgirl #49, mentions of past Dick/Barbara, mentions of past Dick/Bea, post Joker War, post Nightwing #76, spoilers for all the issues/series mentioned!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-01
Updated: 2020-12-01
Packaged: 2021-03-10 04:20:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,105
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27818179
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/phoenixjustice/pseuds/phoenixjustice
Summary: Even if James had fallen back hard off the bandwagon, so to speak, something should have been seen before now, but it hadn’t. ...Could he possibly try and trust James in this? And if he did...what did that mean?
Relationships: Dick Grayson/James Gordon jr
Kudos: 5





	Roots

**Author's Note:**

> For MJ! 
> 
> I hope you enjoy this! <3

Roots

By: PhoenixJustice

 _Batman_ belongs to DC, not me.

A Dick Grayson/James Gordon jr fic, set shortly after mainline Batman's Joker War arc, Nightwing #76 and an alternate version of Batgirl #49 (i.e. James is NOT the killer in the issue.)

:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

"I know you're not happy to see me here."

"What I am or am not isn't the issue here, James."

"We don't always see eye to eye."

James looked as mild mannered and inoffensive as he always did. On the outside at least. Inwardly, well… Dick could only guess.

"That's...one way to put it." Dick says, a bit strained, trying to reign in his temper.

There were not many people who could get to him like this, but then again most of them hadn't been in the position to hurt Barbara on such a fundamental level. He and Barbara weren't together anymore, hadn't been for an age and certainly wouldn't again, but she was still someone he greatly cared about.

"I mean...I know you don't trust me." James says, idly coming to stand next to Dick, hands in his pockets, looking in the same direction that Dick was, before glancing over at him. "But she's my sister, Dick. I want to make sure she's safe as much as you do."

"If only I could believe that." He mutters. He hated feeling this way. But between this situation, as well as getting his memory back, dealing with Joker and his goons, and then leaving Bea (even if it had been for her own good…)

"You need the help though, don't you?" James asks him. Dick glances at him more sharply. It was easy to forget, given the man's troubled past, that he was still a very smart man. Barbara wasn't the only smart Gordon child. "She's already busy enough with her work as Oracle again, isn't she? And of course her work in the city itself."

After the latest scare of a crazed man serially murdering redheaded women to try and get under Batgirl's skin-before trying to kill _her,_ along with dealing with Joker and all of that...it was no wonder she had shuttered off the mantle of Batgirl and chose to do something else instead. The fact that she chose to continue to do _anything_ after all of this, even if it wasn't as Batgirl, was amazing to him, even if it stung that she had given up the mantle.

"And Wayne and the others are still trying to pick up the pieces in restoring his wealth, right?"

"How do you know that?"

James just gives him a look, his glasses glinting a bit from the sun. Dick groans.

"Barbara?" James nods at him.

"I mean, I _did_ help her with that murderer," James says. Which was true, even if hard to believe. Dick might be the most forgiving of them all, generally, but that didn't mean he was _stupid._ "And with The Joker before that."

He takes a step over to Dick and it takes everything in him not to take an instinctive step back.

"I can help you too, Dick." James says, leaning forward, his hands in his pockets.

He had no super powers, no special abilities. And Dick had dealt with some of the biggest (literally), most baddest people out there. And he would _still_ never take James Gordon jr lightly.

"Thanks, but I've got people to help."

"The people who are currently helping Wayne? Or the people currently off world helping Superman against a rampaging army of clones?"

"I...how would you even…"

He lets out a breath slowly.

"You know how to access her codes?"

The amount of encryptions she had on her _regular_ computers _alone_ would be enough to make the _toughest_ code breakers weep. But James nods, looking unusually sincere. And that in of itself was a rather terrifying thought. But nothing had happened (in the what had to have been days now, since Barbara was out, helping Bruce and doing other things.)

Even if James had fallen back hard off the bandwagon, so to speak, _something_ should have been seen before now, but it hadn't. ...Could he _possibly_ try and trust James in this? And if he did...what did that mean?

He's all too reminded of the past, of a terrified Barbara, a devastated Gordon and James with words that said _kill me_ while his eyes said _help me._

"You don't even know why I need to access her computer." He eventually says.

"I don't need to know. Well," James amends. "I _want_ to know. But that isn't reason enough to not help you."

At Dick's look (he can only imagine his own expression to make James look at him like he does a moment later) he shrugs almost helplessly.

"Look...I want to feel useful, okay? All the time on my own...I remember things I don't want to remember."

He swallows and looks away.

"Okay." Was that his voice, so hoarse? "Okay. Come help me."

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

"You've also been learning computer work?" He asks, looking around, but not seeing anything missing or messed with (the urge to think the worst of James immediately is not easy to break, but he tries to think more positively.)

"You can call it hacking, Richard." James says almost absently, as he kneels down in front of the large computer center that belonged to Barbara, hitting a few buttons, with some of the smaller screens coming on instantaneously and others starting to boot up more slowly. "And yes. Not all of us can be blessed with your good looks and athletic ability."

He feels himself flush, despite himself. James doesn't seem to take note of it though, instead running a hand through his short red hair, brows furrowed beneath his glasses as he appeared to be looking for something.

"It's Dick."

James glances at him, shrugging, before straightening back up.

"I figured since this was more official, I'd be more...formal?" He shrugs again. Despite his usual proclivity for indifference, he looked more engaged and present while talking to Dick than he can remember James being (or hearing about.) He grins a little bit. "Unless you'd rather some other nicknames? You're not doing the Bat gig anymore, so what about Nightbird?"

"Nightwing works fine." He says dryly, snorting despite himself. He grins back at him. "You can be Tabby."

"Tabby?"

He grins wider. "The name of my orange cat when I was a kid."

"You did _not_ have a cat named Tabby."

He comes to stand next to James, who starts to mess with some programs and systems once everything has booted up.

"And how do _you_ think you know whether that's true or not? I'm a deep man with a lot of layers. I don't tell Barbara _everything."_

"You tell her _enough."_ James insists. "But anyway, if we're going all in with this hacking thing, I'm not going to be known as _Tabby."_

"Aww, you're not a fan of stripes? Or maybe it's the lack of fun? We could get you one of those little wheel things to run around in for fun." He quips.

James gives him a look so unamused that it makes him laugh aloud, leaving the other man to blink at him, looking surprised. He smiles a bit at Dick after that, a smaller, but more... _real..._ smile. Why he would notice how it makes him look softer around the edges…

"Maybe something like _Neo."_ James says, acting like he was ignoring what Dick said (though the smile still lingering on his face says otherwise.)

"Isn't that copyrighted? You sure you want the Wachowski sisters on your ass for it?"

James shrugs.

"No clue, but I can't be someone like _Cypher._ Or the _Kid_ either, for god's sake. And anyway, I gotta be Neo. Because that makes you Trinity; I mean no one can cut a figure in tight clothes like you, huh?"

He flushes again and turns his attention to the screen.

"So about who I've been trying to look into…" He starts.

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

James whistles, after looking over the files with Dick, though it takes a few minutes gathering everything up, slightly slower than Barbara might have pulled them up, Dick is still very impressed, despite himself, on how efficiently the other man works and feels a pang of what feels very much like regret, that James' demons had kept him from showing how smart he was-especially to himself-until now, that he felt so deep in the shadow of his father and his sister.

"And I thought the stuff that Babs pulled up about the Designer and all the shit with Joker lately was a lot."

"Yeah." Dick says. "In some ways it's good I was still in Bludhaven, otherwise I'd have been equally as in the dark as the others about this."

A new Black Mask, one that appeared to be as ruthless as Roman Sionis and as deranged as Jeremiah Arkham, had appeared on the scene, quite literally out of nowhere. And it was, as Dick had told James, good he had been in Bludhaven. After the breakup with Bea, he had been going hard on patrolling and had come across someone from out of town trying to conduct some shady business and he had gotten out of them some critical information about a new Black Mask trying to set up shop.

In Bludhaven _and_ in Gotham.

"This is good though, right?" James asks him. "You can use this?"

He nods. "Definitely. It'll give me a head start on getting to his channels of operation and putting a kibosh on them before he can grow them too deeply."

He hesitates for a moment, then claps James on the shoulder.

"Thank you."

There's a pause. Once he looks over at James, his eyes widen at the look on the other man's face, making him look more _innocent_ in ways he hadn't...maybe ever. Was innocent even the right word? He didn't know. But he looked something other than the deranged he had in the past or a man with haunted eyes and an even more brittle smile, trying to hide the pain that lie so close to the surface.

"You're welcome, Richard."

He almost looks away from him then, at the look deepening in his eyes.

"It's Dick." He says hoarsely.

"But everyone calls you that." James says, a hesitant smile on his face.

"Alfred calls me Richard...called me that." He corrects, the pain lancing through him, once more reminded that they were all without Alfred, who had been like a father or grandfather to them all.

"Oh. Well I don't want to step on any of that. And anyway," James says quietly. "I don't want you to see me in a light like that."

"What kind of light would you want me to see you in?"

Maybe it was because he was lonely after breaking up with Bea, maybe because he was still twisted inside from losing Alfred, from his memories being twisted and warped almost beyond recognition and having to find himself again, maybe because James understood what it was like to feel like your world was crumbling beneath you and what it was like to have to pick up the pieces of all that and try-and hope-to put it back together again.

"Not Dick. And not Richard either." James says. Dick watches, fascinated, as a flush creeps up his pale skin.

James starts to lean forward.

"What then?" Dick asks quietly. "Why?"

"Why? Because I like you, Nightbird."

Dick closes his eyes in anticipation of what James seemed to be doing, but his eyes pop back open in surprise when he feels lips against his forehead, his face cradled in trembling hands, instead.

"I'm trying." James says. "I really am. But I'm afraid."

"You're afraid to see what the mirror reflects."

"Yes." James whispers.

"You're afraid that the person you thought you were is a lie."

"Yes."

"You're afraid that you can never find the person that you _want_ to be."

"Yes. _Yes."_ James says, in a hunted, raw, voice. "How do you _know?"_

"Because I know what it's like to lose sight of your identity."

James stares at him, eyes wide. He starts to shake his head, the film of tears there in his eyes, when Dick takes his face in his hands, his hands steady to James' ever trembling ones.

"And I know what it means to want something back."

He kisses him tenderly, feeling the tremble of James beneath him.

"You can let go, James." He murmurs. "You won't have to try and rebuild yourself without any help. Not anymore."

:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::


End file.
